Sweeney-Rutgers battle pointless, destructive

Senate President Stephen Sweeney seems bound and determined to exact his pound of flesh for Rowan University being denied the takeover of the Rutgers-Camden campus as part of Rutgers' recent merger with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

That takeover would have been a coup for Sweeney and South Jersey Democratic boss George Norcross, but it was eliminated from the final plan, in part because of opposition from Rutgers' Board of Trustees. Sweeney has already tried to settle that score with a petulant effort to disband the trustees through legislation he tried to rush through the approval process.

Now Sweeney is challenging Gov. Chris Christie's appointment of New Brunswick lawyer Martin Perez to the school's Board of Governors, charging in a lawsuit filed this week that Christie was obligated to nominate a Camden County representative for the seat.

Sweeney doesn't seem to care who the casualties might be in his Rutgers battles, as long as he achieves some measure of perceived justice. Be assured that it's all tied in to Norcross and South Jersey politics in some petty fashion.

The Perez appointment has been bathed in controversy from the start, ever since his nomination was blocked by Democratic senator Bob Smith through the abusive practice of senatorial courtesy. Christie ultimately circumvented that obstacle and made the direct appointment of Perez, claiming he was allowed to do so under his interpretation of a restructuring law passed last year expanding the Board of Governors to 15 members. Sweeney and other Democrats disagree, claiming the appointment was illegal.

Those are the basics. But as always when New Jersey's politicians are involved, there is a whole lot of nonsense percolating underneath it all.

Smith publicly alluded to some "issues" regarding Perez in justifying the senatorial courtesy block, but without any elaboration. What seems likely is that Perez, a Democrat and one of the first Hispanics to serve on the governors' board, isn't in good standing among his fellow Dems. The Latino Leadership Alliance, headed by Perez, endorsed Christie for re-election earlier this year. Perez also drew the wrath of Democrats by supporting a Republican-favored legislative redistricting plan in 2011 designed to create some heavily Latino districts, which critics said would mute Latino political influence.

All of that also helps explain Christie's interest in nominating Perez for the Rutgers board in the first place.

Christie believed he saw a way around senatorial courtesy, and we can't blame him for trying it. That practice, an unwritten but widely used maneuver, allows senators to block gubernatorial nominations without cause and without explanation. Senators continue to defend the practice as a needed check-and-balance mechanism that tempers a governor's powers. But in truth it's nothing more than a power play by senators often used to squeeze out other favors, and it's entirely unfair to the nominees themselves.

Sweeney's hopes of emergency intervention by the courts were dashed, but the lawsuit against the Perez appointment will still play itself out. Regardless, however, this won't be the last we hear of the Sweeney vs. Rutgers chronicles. This won't end well.

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Sweeney-Rutgers battle pointless, destructive

Senate President Stephen Sweeney seems bound and determined to exact his pound of flesh for Rowan University being denied the takeover of the Rutgers-Camden campus as part of Rutgers' recent merger

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